Thursday, July 3, 2014

The past week was great. We were assigned to have meals with the members in one of the wards this week. They came through very nicely and we had some great meals along with good messages with the families we dined with.
We learned one very important thing, that is that our visits with less-active members is enhanced when a member accompanies us. We really understand why it is stressed that the missionaries to have members present with them as non-members are receiving discussions.
We have been giving Temple Preparation classes to a young couple from our ward. They have a new baby about a month old. The lessons have gone quite well. They are planning to go to the temple on Saturday.

We visited on Tuesday with a member who has started coming back to activity. The member with us was so helpful and as we talked the less active member talked about his family. He has a twelve year old son who doesn't know much about the family. We discussed how good it would be if he could talk with his father and record some of his stories on an electronic devise so they could be saved for future reference. He said he didn't know how to do that so we told him we had a list of questions that would help. We delivered that list and hope it will be helpful.
We took time to visit a home teaching family during the week. We feel like we need some association with ward members so we are trying to make visits to our families as we can as part of our schedule. Ruth is also making Visiting Teaching visits during the month.
After a nice meal with a member family we had a good discussion with their two children. The son is a member of the Deacon's quorum presidency, we talked about visiting some of the less active quorum members. The daughter has some friends as well that she is trying to take to activities. Following that visit we met a member of the Bishopric and visited the brother and family of the family we had our meal with. They have a daughter who is unbaptized and the family told us about some of the conflict within the family. Bottom line is that we think the daughter who has already turned eight will be willing to have some discussions and be baptized. Hopefully this will lead to more activity with the family.
We did have one cancellation which is a concern for us. The father in the family has had most of the lessons and needs to have some other matters resolved before being baptized. He has left the home and we are not sure how this will end.
We had a wonderful experience in a sacrament meeting. We were introduced to a couple by two ward members. The man told us he had been baptized about a year ago and the lady, who turns out to be a live-in friend wanted to have the missionaries and be baptized. We set up an appointment for this week and invited them to the Missionary Musical Fireside that night at the Logan Tabernacle. They had a meeting and were not able to get to the fireside. Then on Monday she called and said that she was told she could not be baptized until they were married. Since the marriage wasn't going to happen until later, they cancelled our appointment. We will go pay a visit and at least be friends and encourage them to do what they need to do to be baptized.
The fireside was wonderful.The missionaries in this area are very musically talented and did a great job with the music and their testimonies. There was a nice crowd, it was good to see.
We have a meeting with our Stake Presidency this coming Sunday. It looks like some big challenges are coming so we will find out what we are expected to do going forward.